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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40439
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40439
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I thought the point of the MacGuffin is to force the characters into a journey, so they can be transformed **_by the journey_** , whether they get the MacGuffin or not.

A clear example of this is Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, she is told in the first Act she must seek the WoZ to get home. But in the end, it turns out, she never needed the WoZ at all, she **could** have gotten home the moment she put on the ruby slippers, by clicking her heels three times and repeating "There's No Place Like Home."

So she did not have to meet and befriend the Scarecrow, Tin Man or Cowardly Lion, she did not have to suffer the flying monkeys, or the Wicked Witch of the West, she did not have to uncover the fraud of the Wizard of Oz. Nor did any of her friends truly need the WoZ, if you recall.

But for the story the MacGuffin was **necessary** to force her onto the yellow brick road and the journey that transformed her and her found allies, let her find her courage and become a hero. Without the MacGuffin, she would not feel forced into taking the journey.

So your MacGuffin must be something your characters feel is valuable, literally or figuratively; but that feeling may be the result of a misunderstanding or intentional trickery. They must _think_ it is necessary for them to find to solve their problem, but in truth it doesn't have to be: During the journey they are forced to take, in search of the MacGuffin, they are transformed, and when they finally find it, it may or may not be valuable. That doesn't matter, their prize was their transformation. (Or for the villains, their punishment is their disappointment or utter defeat for wasting time and resources finding the MacGuffin).

Typically, if you want both protagonists AND antagonists searching for the MacGuffin, it must serve either side to find it.

One way to do that is to make the MacGuffin some kind of powerful **tool** that either side could use to advance their good or evil agenda. That might be vast wealth, or something with power bordering on magic, or some kind of secret information (even blackmail or evidence of a crime), or even a computer code of some sort.

It could also be a super-good or super-evil, so one side seeks it to use it, and the other seeks it to destroy it. In any case, to be a true MacGuffin, the main point of this story is what happens in the **journey** , not the ending.

But along the way, it is typically the heroes that benefit from the chase, perhaps by falling in love, or resolving personal issues (like a family reconciling while seeking an inheritance), or exacting vengeance (by finding the clinching evidence, the heroes thwart and convict the villains that bankrupted their father), etc.

What makes a good MacGuffin is a compelling MacGuffin the reader (or viewer) believes makes sense to force two (or more) characters together into a ["crucible"](http://www.fiction-writers-mentor.com/the-crucible/) (see that link it is a useful writing technique), so they must put up with each other while searching for it.

Actually finding the MacGuffin does not have to be the real climax of the story; the **real** climax can be before or after that, and would typically be the final _emotional_ resolution of the character transformations of the MacGuffin chasers. As Dorothy (at least in the movie, I didn't read the book) ultimately loses the WoZ, he flies away without her. But the true end of the movie is when she realizes her power, has become a courageous leader, and then finds herself waking up at home surrounded by the people she loves.

Original score: 7